Posted
by
samzenpus
on Wednesday May 16, 2012 @03:00PM
from the ramping-up-farmville-production dept.

AlistairCharlton writes "Facebook has made yet another amendment to its S-1 filing, adding a further 96 million shares, pushing its initial public offering up to a potential maximum of $18.4bn (£11.5bn). In what is the eighth amendment to its S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Facebook has also increased the number of shares allowed for over allotment, up from 50.6 million to 63.2 million." Facebook will have a lot of pressure to increase revenue after it goes public. jfruh writes in with a story about how that will impact their privacy policies. "There's been a steady drumbeat of panics over the past few years involving how Facebook uses the personal information you give it; nevertheless, someday you'll look back at 2012 as the golden age of Facebook privacy. That's because, once Facebook has its IPO, it'll come under huge pressure from the markets to extract more revenue from its business. And with display advertising not generating game-changing amounts of money, Facebook has only one valuable resource: your data, which is going to be monetized as hard as possible."

Facebook has managed to behave the way it does for the same way Wiretapping laws didn't apply to Skype for a long time, as long as you're a bit player in the business no one gives a shit what you do. As Facebook has gotten big governments have started to take notice. The bigger they are, and the more public they are the more likely governments are to take notice, and if rules don't exist they'll write new ones.

Governments are slow to react to change, that's the nature of the beast, and they have a lot of things on legislative plates that always seem far more pressing than whatever problem I think they should be addressing today. But that's beside the point, piss enough enough important representatives with TSA groping, Privacy Violations (wait until some important senators kid gets stalked via facebook and see how quickly the rules change), or whatever else and see just how quickly government can write new laws. And being publicly traded valued at 100 billion dollars means you don't have a lot of excuses about 'we can't afford to run our business like that' and if you don't comply your shareholders and the government will not be pleased.

They have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to maximise profits, so of course they will do that by reducing privacy

Do you know that Facebook will have 1 shareholder with 55.8% of the voting shares?That shareholder is CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg e could do whatever he wants with Facebook after the IPO and never have to work another day in his life.The only shareholder that matters doesn't need maximized profits.How do facts jive with your "reduce privacy to maximise profits" ideology?

Do you know that Facebook will have 1 shareholder with 55.8% of the voting shares?

I am pretty sure that Facebook is required to maximize the profit of all its investors, despite the fact that one investor holds a majority stake. As CEO, Zuckerberg does have a duty to all of Facebook's investors, not just his own vision...

The only shareholder that matters doesn't need maximized profits.
How do facts jive with your "reduce privacy to maximise profits" ideology?

...except that Zuckerberg has already attacked privacy rights, both in statements and through Facebook's policies and design. So there is really no reason to think that he would not continue to do so.

Do you know that Facebook will have 1 shareholder with 55.8% of the voting shares?

I am pretty sure that Facebook is required to maximize the profit of all its investors, despite the fact that one investor holds a majority stake. As CEO, Zuckerberg does have a duty to all of Facebook's investors, not just his own vision...

I think, more accurately, that Zuckerberg has a duty to do what was promised in the IPO filings with the SEC. I haven't read them, so I don't know what's in there, but they could say he's planning to drive Facebook's share value to $0, and he'd have a legal obligation to try to do just that, and could be sued for trying to increase shareholder value.

Now, that would obviously be silly, but the serious point is that if the plans laid out for potential shareholders to read include a focus on maintaining user privacy, or even just a focus on long-term value over short term value, then Zuckerberg would not be obligated to monetize as hard as he can. Rather he'd be obligated to balance the competing goals in accordance with shareholder expectations (which are defined by the filings). Even if they don't contain anything like that, it's still no slam dunk that he has to do whatever he can to maximize short-term profits. Abusing users' privacy too badly will erode the user base, which will damage the company long term.

With all that said, the pattern that has been established is that Facebook takes two steps forward into user privacy abuse, then takes a half step back. Lather, rinse repeat. What I expect is for FB to continue pretty much exactly like it has, with the net effect being a gradual erosion.

Zuckerberg e could do whatever he wants with Facebook after the IPO and never have to work another day in his life....How do facts jive with your "reduce privacy to maximise profits" ideology?

Okay, as you asked, here's a fact: The IPO will not make Mark Zuckerberg immediately fabulously wealthy. More accurately, on paper, yes. But he can't immediately convert that book value to real world cash. There are rules that state he must hold on to those shares for a certain period of time before he can trade them; these rules are put in place expressly to prevent such shenanigans. Zuckerberg sits back and lets Facebook go all burnt toast, and by the time he can sell his shares they're pretty well worthl

People will only be driven away if they see their privacy being violated -- information exposed to friends, etc. Now, suppose that Facebook just conveniently sells more detailed information to advertisers at higher prices, without telling the users -- nobody will leave the site, and even if they are told what is happening they will just say, "Well so what, I am not that interesting so why should I care?"

I love it when people use the hackneyed logic. Yes it is true – but it does not mean that a company hast to rape, pillage or commit short term fixes to make next quarter’s earnings. As long as the C.E.O. can stand up and say – with a straight face – that their actions is part of a plan for the long term good of the company their safe.

What this phrase means is that Zuckerberg can’t screw the minority shareholders because it’s inconvenient. If company X offered to buy out

When people use Facebook they are very focused on their social relationships, the get in read what they have to, respond as they need to, maybe play a game and get out. They are never actually looking for anything, so adds are at complete divergence to their activity and ignorable background.

No, they have a fiduciary responsibility to act in the shareholders' best interests which is not necessarily maximizing profits. It's what they sell to shareholders in their prospectus that matters. Go read Google's prospectus to see what makes them different from most other companies, particularly the sections about "privacy", "evil", "long term" and "brand".

This begs the question; when should they maximize profits, short-term or long-term? Long term shareholders don't care about the next quarter. They want to see money reinvested, talent retained, and the user base satisfied. Short-term shareholders want to see money paid out, staff fired, and the user base squeezed for the maximum amount today. These two interests are directly at odds in all companies. Therefore, "profit maximization" is really not possible for all shareholders.

As a future shareholder of facebook, I wil lbe encouraging it - I want access to all that sweet sweet data since I effectively own a part of it!

On a more serious note, there is no privacy on Facebook to begin with. The only reason for "privacy controls" is purely one of marketing - it's used to encourage people to spew their guts onto the site, under the guise of "privacy". Otherwise no site will be able to get much in the way of user data - unless you pretend there's some "privacy", people will be cautious

Hell, I'd bet a significant number of the profiles on there haven't even been accessed in months. As for false information, almost everyone I know has false information in their profile somewhere.

That's one reason why I think this whole IPO is going to crash and burn. Once shareholders start demanding the wringing of every piece of revenue out of the data they can, they're going to realize that a lot of the data is trash, which is going to affect the value of it, obviously. Then you're going to end up wi

Almost all of my profile data is fake, much of it obviously ludicrous (my college is right, my degree in "Bible Sexuality" not so much, my occupation in the "Salt Mines" is factually incorrect but metaphorically true...). The only profile picture I've ever had that was actually a photograph of me was when I was 6 years old (40-odd years ago). There are no photos tagged of me.

The interwebs is filled with stories, articles and opinions about why getting in on the Facebook IPO is such a bad idea. I can't find a single piece that argues for buying FB shares now (if you do, can you please share?). So I'm wondering, if there is such an overwhelming negativity against the shares, what's driving this demand up and making fb add more shares?! brokerage firms are offering pre-orders for pre-screened buyers with a minimum number of orders and still are not guaranteeing issuance of shares. If so many people are saying don't do it, who are all the people who are doing it, and why? I find it hard to believe that so many people are actually ignoring the news and willing to put money down - surely there's something we're missing?

âoeWe want to dump a lot of money into Facebook,â one says, citing peersâ(TM) activity on the site as evidence of its longevity. âoeYouâ(TM)re on Facebook half your day, if not more. Itâ(TM)s a necessity. Itâ(TM)s water, itâ(TM)s death and now itâ(TM)s Facebook.â

Sadly it seems to me that it's the same people that thought pets.com or whatever.com were were good bets, but only now they're slightly more informed. Back in the 90's it was "They're on the INTERNET! That's the FUTURE! CAN'T LOSE!!"

Note I'm not buying and not seriously advocating, but paraphrasing a lot of sites I've seen:

1) If the stock price reflects a price per user around $120 each, which seems to be the consensus view, and the earnings per user is known to be about $1.40 per user per year, that's a 1% rate of return. I wish I had a bank account with that high of return. Of course when investing you need to worry about return OF capital before you worry about return ON capital, if you know what I mean...

The standard way to value a stock is the P/E ratio. If FB makes $.59 per share next year and the stock is priced at $37.50 that would give us a P/E ratio of 63. If you take the inverse of the P/E ratio you get a simple rate of return of 1.6%. This is a better way to calculated then your method.

Which moves us to $120 price per head. This is a hoary method of valuating stock, normally used when the growth of a company is unpredictable. This was

The interwebs is filled with stories, articles and opinions about why getting in on the Facebook IPO is such a bad idea.

Because you are probably looking only to the interwebs appealing to a typical slashdot user. The kind of user that understands the consequences of misuse of personal data, and already knows several examples of big internet-related companies that went under. Also, it is easy to understand how facebook value is largely overrated - the _real_ payday is probably now, but only for (not so few) investors. Those are the same investors financing the stories about the opportunity that investing in Facebook is, and h

Worldwide ad spending. The only thing they can sell right now is... you. But the buyers are spending less than a trillion worldwide annually. That's the total market. Their annual revenue is already about 4B. Realistically, they should be able to grab no more than about double their attention share, and what is that, maybe 5% (generously). That puts about a 25x growth cap on facebook, and assumes that they successfully reach basically everyone who ever sees advertising.

But what if they start selling background check services to corporations? Or live monitoring of employees/customers/competitors/whatever?"Peeking" into teens life for parents (and teachers?) for a hefty fee. Fear sells!Market research is valuable (FB what car colors do people prefer? or whatever)Style. Like zynga's virtual stuff, maybe your fb profile can look like an old myspace page full of animations if you send FB $5 for each little animated taggy / yellow

> But what if they start selling background check services to corporations?> Or live monitoring of employees/customers/competitors/whatever?> "Peeking" into teens life for parents (and teachers?) for a hefty fee. Fear sells!

Those sevices would become worthless in a few months, once it became widely known they do this. People will start getting more discreet, or dumping Facebook altogether. Remember the recent rash of stories about prospective employers wanting access to job applicants' Facebook acc

A whole lot of people seem to forget that there's a ton of cash floating around FB for the games. I recal reading they get like a 30% rip on every zynga transaction so it's probably the same for all others. Just zynga alone makes up like 15% of their revenue.
I don't think they will grow all that much going forward personally but I wanted to point out that ad revenue is not their only source.

Facebook is caught between a rock and a hard place with regard to user privacy. They already take a lot of flack from users who don't like what they perceive as Facebook's lax privacy protection. Facebook can't simply dilute it further without risking a flood of protest from its users. It can't afford that. That's not to mention the various state and federal privacy regulations already in place that will also constrain them.

Oh, and don't count out Google+ as competition just yet. Google isn't going to declare defeat in the social media space any time soon. They recently completely revamped the Google+ interface and have shown that they're in it for the long haul. They will be waiting for Zuckerberg & Co. to stumble and give users an excuse to jump ship. I suspect they won't have to wait long.

Of course, the investors will be howling for Facebook to bring in the numbers, especially now that GM has announced yesterday that they are cancelling all of their advertising on FB due to its lack of effectiveness. You can bet that move has caught the attention of every other large advertiser. Facebook is in trouble. They have very little maneuverability to enhance their revenue stream and a lot of pressure to do so. Something's got to give and I predict it will not be pretty for either FB's bottom line or their stock price.

Facebook is caught between a rock and a hard place with regard to user privacy. They already take a lot of flack from users who don't like what they perceive as Facebook's lax privacy protection. Facebook can't simply dilute it further without risking a flood of protest from its users. It can't afford that. That's not to mention the various state and federal privacy regulations already in place that will also constrain them.

1. 1 billion users, valued at 100 USD per user is absurd. I don't see them being able to monetize traffic better than Google does, especially international. They are locked out of China too, so forget that market growth. FB is way too faddish. You will see major attrition over time without the

Actually, Facebook's profit margin and debt-equity ratio are about the same as Google's. However, their revenue and profit are around 1/10 of Google (IIRC) while their estimated valuation is about 1/5 (?), so they are likely overvalued.

you are very misinformed, google came in a decade ago and helped the world rid itself of flashy graphic ads. google was faster on dialup as well. Facebook was a less flashy myspace with similar retarded games. Might i add that when facebook messes up they dont fix it till they get caught. when this ipo happens the money is gonna kill facebook

What the HELL is it with this trend of new people having multi-paragraph posts up at the exact same time the article hits. Check the timestamps -- there's less than a minute between this post and the article going up. It's this account's first post, it's paragraphs long, it's up at the same time as the article, and it's telling you to buy Facebook stock. Draw your own conclusions.

If the OP typed up eight paragraphs in response to a Firehose submission just in case it got posted and then sat there ready to claim first post when it did, and he's not getting paid, he's just trolling, I think that's a good deal more self-humiliating than the people "falling for it".

I thought exactly the same thing when Google went IPO and the Investment Industry was pushing a stock price of $75. I convinced our investment club (remember those?) that they didn't have a business plan, had no obvious source of sufficient revenue to sustain the share valuation that was being discussed, and that we shouldn't buy in.

Both Facebook and Google share many business practices and monetizing practices. While Google had the unfortunate timing for their IPO (2004) after dot com bubble burst, the exact same thing could had been said about them. Many slashdotters, however, still believe that Google does the right thing.

I'm not sure who these "Many Slashdotters" are that you refer to -- some sort of expert panel on the morality of corporations I guess -- but they certainly are ignorant, and haven't been reading the website for which they are named. Google has become quite bent, particularly relative to their starting point, and that subject is discussed regularly and extensively on these forums (typically with a few ignorant twits starting the discussion by saying, "But you all love Google!" followed by a chorus of, "Are you daft? No we don't."). From cozying up to the U.S. surveillance state to embracing censorship in China, Google has become far more morally flexible since their IPO.

And bear in mind, Google started off as a hard-core moralist corporation. They were the poster-boys for "what a scientist/moralist company should be" until Eric Schmidt and the public shareholders came along. Facebook is starting with no discernible principles to act as a rudder.

Of course, I agree with your assessment of the investment potential. But that says a great deal more about the flaws in our economic policies than it does about whether Facebook is good for long-term United States growth.

The main reason is Google already has a business model (serving ads), when I dont see one for facebook. Google ads are far more effective than facebook. Google can serve ads, when you are really looking for something. You are about to buy a car, you are far more likely to google, and compare cars, than 'facebook' for it. Facebook would really have to start pushing it, if they want to sustain themselves on advertising, which would mean more shady practices (buying information from shady companys, etc).PS: di

Okay so I know you're just another of those high UID, never posted before anti-Google troll-shills but I can answer this question:

"What I cannot understand is why Google gets a free pass on this while slashdotters absolutely hate Facebook."

There are a number of reasons, but for me they are:

Despite all the FUD your PR company likes to spread, for all the theoretical things Google has done wrong over the years I've never actually suffered anything detrimental as a result of Google's theoretically evil actions. I've never suffered spam, I've never had any problems. Contrast this to Facebook and the theoretical problems turn into actual problems - I have had Facebook illegaly sell my data in breach of the UK's data protection act, I have had it recommend people who it could only have associated with me by illegaly gathering data from elsewhere. I know these things for a fact because we're talking about data which I have not stored on Facebooks systems, e-mail addresses that I have only used in certain places and so forth.

Further, whilst Google certainly does do wrong, it also often tries hard to do right, in contrast I can't think of anything positive that's over and above it's business interests that Facebook has done. I've also yet to see anyone quite as obnoxious and who quite so desperately believes his own bullshit as the guy following the discussion at about 49minutes into this documentary:

Oh, it probably doesn't help that Google came from a couple of guys doing some university research, whilst Facebook came from a guy who stole and cheated left right and centre either. That's not really the greatest starting point for a company who wants to get all our data, whether given it honestly, or whether it's obtained it illegaly. On the illegality thing, here's a hint as to what I'm referring to: under the data protection acts of many countries, including (all?) those in Europe, a third party cannot give a company permission to hold your data, yet Facebook uses EXACTLY this method to gather data on people. The previous automatic opt in on allowing apps to gather friends data even if those friends haven't used that app and hence have no relationship with the 3rd party company in question is an example of this.

That's only if your a short term investor who has the capitol to put up for a large buy, the regular people that don't have access to those types of funds should stay away as FaceBook as a long term investment, is insane. It will slowly die out just as Myspace did after it was bought and pressured to make more money. In the short term the price will continue to go up until something new pops up, users will mass migrate, and the revenues will dry up like grandmas vagina.

Currently there are amount 800 million people (a very impressive number!), but there is room for over 6 billion more. And those won't be joining MySpace, Google+ or Diaspora, they will join Facebook because that's where everyone is.

Last time I checked 800 million is way less than 6 billion (about 13% of 6 billion), which kind of contradicts the statement that 'that's where everyone is'

Working in investment industry, I...

Oh is that where the fuzzy math comes from?

Before I reach for my wallet, could mister financial industry explain how facebook's revenue (around 1bilion) justifies the current valuation of 100 billion? Short of making every single living person on the planet a facebook member and then quadrupling their net income per user (currently at about $1) I don't see how any investment made now will break even in the next 5 years.

People who are wondering about Facebook's end game can't see the forest for the trees. The IPO *is* the end game. The absurd valuation is paraded around like a supercar, like it's a sign of power and not of a huge loan that needs to be repaid.

Don't know about selling data, but their astroturfing unit seems to be running at full steam.

Take a look at the original post. I SAID LOOK AT IT! Holy shit! IT'S FUCKING BEAUTIFUL. The grammar and punctuation is impeccable. It's the longest, most intensive, best edited FIRST POST! I've ever seen. Complete with embedded links! Almost as if he had it typed and ready to paste in advance of this story. Oh, and it's the only story ever commented on by a brand new ID. Get bent, astroturfer. We like Google better than you. Suck on it.

Don't know about selling data, but their astroturfing unit seems to be running at full steam.

Take a look at the original post. I SAID LOOK AT IT! Holy shit! IT'S FUCKING BEAUTIFUL. The grammar and punctuation is impeccable. It's the longest, most intensive, best edited FIRST POST! I've ever seen. Complete with embedded links! Almost as if he had it typed and ready to paste in advance of this story. Oh, and it's the only story ever commented on by a brand new ID. Get bent, astroturfer. We like Google better than you. Suck on it.

I can top that... google his name, it shows up nowhere on the entire internet except this/. story. If you're gonna astroturf, at least have the brains to use a name like "john doe" or "a5tr0turf3r".

Can someone with a FB account search for him on FB? I deleted my account well over a year ago so I can't search FB.

Don't worry, friend! Even though you "deleted" it, your Facebook account is never really deleted! For your convenience, of course! Just log back in and it's all still there, and now you're back whether or not you want to be! Hooray!

Thing is, the real astroturfers all have accounts, do not make strange posts like the OP, and work in subtle ways to mould your thinking rather than just telling you what to think direct.It's a well-understood thing.

At what step did Google get involved? It's like you've replaced the "???" step in the "Profit!" sequence with something involving Google.

For all you know, local dealerships or Accura Corp. have some kind of their own "Accura owner's database" and are using it to generate advertising. Google doesn't have anything obvious to do with it, unless you're going to say GMail... in which case, I have to ask... How much email does your father generate about his car? Google can't datamine contents

Google has enough resources to match IP address to a physical address. Most maps users, set their "default location" in google maps to their real home address. Also when you use, "My location" feature in maps, Google gets you location, and gets to associate with your gmail address.

Google has enough resources to match IP address to a physical address.

That's unlikely. The federal government and the RIAA both have to subpoena records from ISPs to map an IP address to a real address. I doubt Google can manage it unless you hand them that information.

Most maps users, set their "default location" in google maps to their real home address. Also when you use, "My location" feature in maps, Google gets you location, and gets to associate with your gmail address.

Most maps users don't bother setting their default location. The "my location" feature relies on IP geolocation or the location information your browser has access to. Unless you're using it from a smartphone or tablet, that means all its' got is IP geolocation. They don't need Maps for that at all, since they

That's unlikely. The federal government and the RIAA both have to subpoena records from ISPs to map an IP address to a real address. I doubt Google can manage it unless you hand them that information.

Feds and RIAA need to get it right 100% of the time, google does not. Even a 50% accuracy would greatly improve google's targetting.

Most maps users don't bother setting their default location. The "my location" feature relies on IP geolocation or the location information your browser has access to. Unless you're using it from a smartphone or tablet, that means all its' got is IP geolocation. They don't need Maps for that at all, since they already know what IP address you log into Gmail from. But IP geolocation has no precision; for associating per-household data with Gmail accounts, it's completely worthless.

Anecdotal of course, but most people who rely on Google Maps for directions do set the default location, so that they dont have to bother typing it everytime. The "my location" does depend on the browser's implementation. But browsers do opt to outsource it to Google (atleast Mozilla and Chrome do). When you click on my location, the browser sends your IP address and the list o

Another advantage you have by not using any of the numerous mobile ad frameworks/apis is that you're not giving away your users' usage patterns and other unknown data. Good choice!

That's something that has always irritated me about the ad-sponsored apps: the app developers (usually) have no concept of how that data is getting used -- and they seem to be ignorant of the fact that multiple app developers using the same framework means that the providers get to build quite a profile. All tied to a specific u